Saturday, June 27, 2015

Coinciding with the
announcement by the CNE that the legislative elections will finally be held on
December 6, this week the government reissued many of the conspiracy claims
made in the last months, and produced some new ones.

As in the past most
of the claims made by government officials and public media this week attempt
to show the supposed links between the Venezuelan opposition and
paramilitaries, common crime, and of course, the Empire.

This past week of
hectic conspiracy theorizing by the government is a preview of the next
months of intense electoral campaigning.

The Saleh, Ledezma,
D’Alta, Bolívar, Guarimba Connection

President Maduro has
been insisting this week that he has evidence that the murder of Adriana
Urquiola Pérez was part of a plot by the opposition.

Urquiola, a sign
interpreter for hearing impaired, was killed by a gun shot in a confusing event during an opposition protests in March 2014. Urquiola
had no connection with the protest and was getting of a bus that had to stop
because the road was blocked by protestors when she was shot. Opposition
protestors claimed that Urquiloa had been killed by pro-government colectivos that had attacked the guarimba with fire-arms several times during that day.

Maduro instead first
blamed the circumstances created by
the guarimbas for the death. But lately has been arguing that the murder was an action directly funded by
opposition leaders with the aim of destabilizing his government. The link seems
to be the suspected murderer Jhonny Bolívar, who was arrested in Colombia and
has been deported to Venezuela. Maduro claimed that Bolívar is linked to Leopoldo
D’Alta who had been a member of the “ultra-right NGO” Foro Penal –the NGO has denied that D’Alta was ever linked to
them.- Also, D’Alta apparently worked for jailed opposition leader Antonio
Ledezma when he was Mayor of Caracas, this, for Marudo, stablishing a clear
link between the opposition and D’Alta.

Maduro claims to have
evidence that Bolívar killed Urquiola, that he is linked to D’Alta, and that
D’Alta is the link between the whole plot and Ledezma. It’s all part of
ongoing, presumably secret investigations, but Maduro explained that the
attorney’s office had granted him “special permission” to make the findings
made so far public because, he argued, “it is my responsibility to protect Venezuela from these violent,
extremist, guarimberos, terrorist,
and murderous groups, whatever I say about them with all the information I have
is too little, (…) we are dealing with monsters.”

In his weekly public
television show “En Contacto con Maduro,”
the president showed a video with part of “all the information” he has. The video (see below)
stablishes what it calls “The Guarimba
Connection,” and is subtitled with the names of those supposedly linked to the
plot: Antonio Ledezma, Lorent Saleh, Leopoldo D’Alta, and Jhonny Bolivar. Saleh
is shown in what appears to be a conversation via Skype saying that “not much
is needed, only a few people throwing rocks and burning tires.” At one point he
says: “pa-pa-pa-pa-pa.” The editors of the video, so as to leave no doubt of
how that onomatopoeia should be understood, cut to images of people using
firearms during protests. Then Saleh says to the unknown interlocutor that
Leopoldo D’Alta will contact him. Saleh describes D’Alta as a lawyer who worked
for the Chacao municipality police and also, “worked with Ledezma.” The video
adds that D’Alta traveled with Ledezma to Colombia in 2011 and “met Álvaro
Uribe.” A picture of D’Alta walking behind Ledezma is also shown. Then, the
video cuts to images of the arrest of Jhonny Bolívar in Colombia by the
Interpol. The video also claims that the first phone call Bolívar made after
his arrest was to D’Alta. The video ends with pictures of Ledezma, Saleh and
D’alta crossed with the word “capturado,”
and then five more blanked pictures with the words “others linked that are
still to be captured.”

The Primero Justicia New
York Imperial Connection

Accusations that
opposition leaders, mainly from the party Primero
Justicia, met in New York with their imperial overlords to receive
“instructions” have also been repeated this week by several government officials.

The claim seems to
have been first made by Jorge Rodríguez during a meeting with PSUV
candidates to the party’s primaries:

“They went to New York, to the imperialist high meeting [cumbre],
to receive instructions,” said Rodriguez. “Not even in its darkest moments
Venezuela had such a defeatist and sold-out [entreguista y vendido]
sector as this Venezuelan right. The only sickness suffered by the democracy of
this country is that of the corrupt rightist leadership,” concluded Rodriguez.

“We are still lacking a rational and nationalist opposition, that party
of fascists [Primero Justicia] held its meeting in New York, they went to the
United States to discuss problems of Venezuela, but what they really did is to go
there to receive instruction form that sector of imperialism that does not want
the peace of the country, they went there to kneel down [to imperialism],” said
Cabello.

“In Miami there are sector of the right plotting the actions after the
international pretension [visit?] of the Spanish ex-president Felipe González,
and [the end] of Leopoldo López’s hunger strike. These actions will seek to
generate violence with the help of paramilitaries, in order to ask for the
liberation of the leader of Voluntad
Popular [Leopoldo López.]”

Cabello also linked the opposition with past and coming events that more
naïve observers perhaps would blame on common crime:

“[they] will continue with their actions of support to crime groups,
especially in the Cota 905 of
Caracas, Maracay, Valencia, and Guárico, with the support of paramilitaries and
the Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe. (…) They will create a brigade to
infiltrate the barrios and popular sectors, using the popular networks set by
Leopoldo López, with the aim of stablishing populist programs and giving people
three month long working contracts, but it will all be a lie.”

The economic war: Update from the front

Also this week, president Maduro was busy fighting the economic war he
claims is being waged by the enemies of the revolution against the Venezuelan
people.

Maduro signed three agreements with Iran in the areas of commerce,
science, and health. The president stressed that the main agreement was,
according to the Agencia
Venezolana de Noticias(AVN), over an “exchange of methodology,
techniques, and policies to face the economic war in the country, which is characterized
by hoarding, speculation, and smuggling of basic products, and is orchestrated
by financial sectors and business men linked to parties of the right.”

Sabotage!

Finally this, form
a piece by Alexander Ulmer published by Reuters on the crime surge affecting
the oil industry:

“POLITICAL 'SABOTAGE'?

“PDVSA says it is up against
"sabotage" from political enemies who see damaging the oil industry
as a means to weaken President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government. The company points to measures,
including the arrest of employees for the Monagas theft and the deployment of
the army to protect installations in that state, as proof Venezuela is taking
oil crime seriously.”

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Jorge Rodriguez, PSUV
leader and mayor of the Libertador Municipality of Caracas, told
supporters that the leaders of the opposition party Primero Justicia are currently on a trip to New York receiving “instructions
and seeking dollars from corrupt bankers, fugitives, thieves, and drug traffickers
from Miami, in order to continue with the conspiracy.”

The Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN)
claims that Henrique Carpiles, Richard Mardo and Julio Borges are among those
in New York “meeting bankers and businessmen fugitives of the Venezuelan Justice.”
DATANALISIS’ director Luis Vicente León is also included by AVN in the list.

“They went to New
York, to the imperialist high meeting [cumbre],
to receive instructions,” said Rodriguez. “Not even in its darkest moments
Venezuela had such a defeatist and sold-out [entreguista y vendido] sector as this Venezuelan right. The only
sickness suffered by the democracy of this country is that of the corrupt
rightist leadership,” concluded Rodriguez.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Mario Silva, in his weekly
public television show La Hojilla,
has accused Lorenzo Mendoza, president of Venezuela’s private food products corporation
Empresas Polar, of being “linked to
the financing of a dirty war media campaign based on [producing] psychological terror
against Venezuela, for which it has used 7,200 million Bolivars, with the
purpose of generating hopelessness [desesperanza]
and chaos [zozobra] among the people [by
using] the supposed scarcity of basic products.”

According to the Agencia
Venezolana de Noticias (AVN),
Silva said that the media terror campaign against Venezuela also includes other
Venezuelan businessmen living in Miami, the “rightist” party Primero Justicia,
and “recently created digital media outlets, which are in charge of taking to
the masses the contents of the dirty war in order to create an negative environment,
not only in Venezuela, but also in international circles.”

Later during the show
the CIA, Álvaro Uribe, Armando Briquet, Julio Borges, and Maria Corina Machado,
were also included by Silva as part of the plot.

Silva quoted three
webpages as the main vehicles of this “terror campaign” against the country: pordavidnci.com,
infovzla.com, and cambiavenezuela.com. These webpages are, according to Silva, each
financed by Empresas Polar, “Miami
based businessmen,” and the Primero
Justicia party, respectively.

Facebook and twitter were
also included by Silva in an “open alliance with the most terrible sectors of fascism.”

Yván Gil, Minister of
Agriculture, also recently
accusedEmpresas Polar of being
part of the “economic war” against Venezuela. Gil argues that the evidence of
Polar’s participation in the economic war is that the company has been
importing corn instead of producing it in the country.

The Minister said: “The
position of Empresas Polar is to maximize
its earnings through the oil revenues we have been transferring to them, this allows
them to generate distortions in the local market, and thus they can preserve that
model [of maximizing earnings], and keep that vicious circle turning. This is
what we have been seeing and it is the maximum expression of the economic war.”

Gil also explained
what the economic war actually is and responded to those who “trivialize and
make fun” of the idea that an economic war is actually being waged against the
country: “It has been proven that the economic war responds to a methodology
designed by the most powerful empire on earth. It [the Empire] uses the worldwide
media control to manipulate the basic needs of the human being. It uses its
control over the means of production, and even with all that power, we, a
country of only 30 million and modest capabilities, have resisted together with
the president [Maduro] in good shape and they have not been able to put us up against
the ropes.”

Thursday, June 18, 2015

The president of the National Assembly and vice-president
of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello, has returned from his trip to Brazil, where he
claims to have made important advances in the pharmaceutical front of the
economic war.

According to the Agencia
Venezolana de Noticias: “The recent visit to Brazil of the president of
the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, has strengthened the strategic alliances
between the two nations in the area of food products and medicines, the
distribution of which has been affected by the destabilization plans of the Venezuelan
ultra-right and its economic war, which aims at creating anxiety [zozobra] among the population.”

“They are seeking to create anguish among the
population,” explained Cabello, “through the economic war, which is characterized
by speculation, overpricing, and smuggling of basic products. (…) This has
happened not only with milk, but also with sugar, personal hygiene products,
and now with medicines.”

Cabello also said that the distribution of
the imported medicines will be strictly controlled by the government because, he
explained, the pharmaceutical labs in Venezuela are in cahoots with the
destabilizing plans of the “Venezuelan ultra-right.”

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

“Never before has something like this been
seen. This harassment by local and international sinister interests has no
precedents,” begins the most
recent article by chavista
journalist José Vicente Rangel.

Rangel, without providing evidence but appealing
to performative hyperbolism, narrates how never before in the history of Latin
America has a government been subject to such an “organic, compact aggression by
the right-wing, softened democratic sectors, economic groups, paid [tarifadas] NGOs, and the fiercely aligned
media.”

These local conspiracy groups are but the
local manifestation of a foreign evil, according to Rangel: “The harassment against
Venezuela is being directed by recalcitrant sectors of the United States right,
the aggressive intelligence apparatus of that nation.”

The Venezuelan opposition to the government also
represents, for Rangel, a unique and unprecedented case in the world history of
evil conspiracies: “Never before in Venezuela, or in any other nation, has there
been an opposition so divorced from the concept of fatherland, or more willing
to sell the country to the highest bidder.”

Monday, June 15, 2015

The latest
poll by DATANALISIS shows that only 9.3% of those surveyed blame the
private sector for food scarcity, while 50% blame the government.

This is Luís Vicente
León’s interpretation:

“The government is suffering
from the consequences of having used for a long time arguments [to explain scarcity]
that are not the real causes: when you resort to arguments such as the economic
war, you divide the population between those who believe you and those who don’t.
But if the problem continues, you start to be seen as inept. That is: either
the economic war is real, or you are not capable of resolving it. This is why
the population considers the government, and Maduro, responsible for the
scarcity of goods. The people are not buying the story of the economic war.”

Sunday, June 14, 2015

New inheritance taxes
proposed by the government have sparked opposition protests against President Rafael
Correa of Ecuador.

Correa believes the
protests are part of a conspiracy to overthrow his government. His explanations
are reminiscent of the language often used by the Venezuelan government to
denounce supposed recurrent plots by the opposition and foreign enemies. Correa
said that the situation in Ecuador “this week has been very tough. (…) There
is a conspiracy on the making. (…) These people [participating in the protests]
are very violent and they are complicit with the media. They are openly knocking
on the doors of military barracks. They are not only against the inheritance
law, they want to overthrow the government.”

Venezuela’s president
Nicolás Maduro has
expressed solidarity with Correa and claimed that “Imperialism” is behind
the plot: “Look at the conspiracy that imperialism is now plotting against
president Rafael Correa, the most democratic and humanist president in the
history of his country, a great leader of Latin America. From Venezuela we say
to him that he has all our support.”

Maduro also
claimed that the alleged conspiracy against Correa included plans to
assassinate the president of Ecuador: “Now there is a rightist campaign that is
turning criminal, a campaign of magnicidio
[assassination of head of state], of hatred, of intolerance and violence in
Ecuador.”

Saturday, June 6, 2015

The Venezuelan government
is seeing signs of what it calls “right-wing sabotage” in the oil industry and
in the public services infrastructure.

President Maduro
warned yesterday via twitter (@NicolasMaduro) that the “invisible hand of the
right does not stop in its attack against or people. Justice will be made.”

On Friday, June 5,
the PSUV governor of Aragua, Tareck
El Aissami, announced that a fire at an electric sub-station near La
Victoria, had been caused by an act of sabotage on Thursday. The fire caused a
blackout in the central region of the country, including parts of Caracas.

Also on Thursday the Attorney
General’s office announced that three workers of the oil industry, and five
persons unrelated to the industry, had been arrested for an “act of sabotage” against
oil installation in Monagas.

Ricardo Menéndez, Minister
of Planning and Knowledge, led the delegation in charge of presenting the
Venezuelan government report to the Committee.

After the
presentation be the Venezuelan delegation, which basically noted the accomplishments
of the Bolivarian Revolution, Committee members questioned the delegation on several
topics such as poverty reduction, crime rates, health, and corruptions.

One of the most
contested issues was that of the “economic war”, which the government argues is
being waged by the opposition and its “foreign allies” against the country.

Rodrigo Uprimny, a Committee
member, directly
questioned the “economic war” narrative: “When there is progress, these are
because of the Revolution, but when there are problems you blame the economic
war.” Two more members, Mohammed Ezzeldin Abdel-Monein and Shiqiu Chen asked
for specific examples of the economic war, and for an explanation of what
exactly the concept referred to.

Menéndez answered
that the economic blockade [cerco
económico] on the country was an undeniable fact and asked the Committee
for respect, and not to “make value judgements” or “trivialize the economic war.”

As examples of
economic war he said that international markets manipulated to harm oil prices
and destabilize the Venezuelan currency.

According
to the Committee´s web page, Menéndez: “said that human rights were a
fundamental pillar of the Constitution and were planted and transposed in the
plan for the homeland and were a daily action of the Government. Venezuela was
not governed by corporations, but by its people and the desire to live better.
The question of economic war must be fully borne in mind, and it must be
remembered that despite the 60 per cent decline in income as a result of a drop
in oil prices, human development indicators had remained steady over the years,
and this was because of a different approach that the country employed.”

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

The latest report Monitor
País of the Venezuelan pollster Hinterlaces analyzes the “hopes and
anguishes” of the population.

The in-depth analysis
of the data is provided by Hinterlace’s José Useche in a piece titled “The
Economic Crisis Takes its Toll” [pasar
factura]. Useche does start by acknowledging that there is in fact a “rooted [arraigada]
crisis,” and that there has been a “rise in distress, pessimism, sadness, and preoccupation
compared with last March.”

However, according to
the Monitos País, there is no simple
cause and effect relation between the crisis and sadness; there is also an intervening
variable: “the neurotization media campaigns and the economic crisis have, in
only two months, affected the indicators of this study.”

“The campaign of
destabilization and neurotization against the Venezuelan society has achieved
an over-inflation [sobredimensionar]
of the crisis and has fueled discontent,” further explains Useche.

There is little doubt
for Useche that this campaign of “over-inflation” of the crisis is a strategy of
the opposition: “it is a strategy that seeks to achieve the weakening of the presidential
image by using mockery, excess, and discredit.”

This is not the first
Monitor País that has used a form pop
political-social-psychology rhetoric to back the government’s claim that perceptions
of the crisis are being negatively manipulated by a coordinated media campaign.
Last
January Hinterlaces claimed that the
opposition was “preparing the Venezuelan society for future neurotic responses.”

Back in its January
report, Hinterlaces also warned of the coming psyco-social war: “The current campaign, executed by an
experienced and professional ‘Mass Clinic’ [Clínica de Masas],
constitutes a new chapter in a long planned process of accumulation of
collective distress [angustia] that aims at rekindling the uncertainty
and the feeling of defenselessness [of the people], and also at provoking the
overflowing of irrational responses.” All part of an “insurrectional strategy
–through a psyco-social war- that the most radical adversaries of the
Bolivarian Revolution have declared…”

The current Monitor País analysis
seems to be Hinterlaces’ way of arguing that its predictions are being “fulfilled.”